In
late November 1996 builders cutting a new road found human bones
in their spoil. Cleveland Police and Tees Archaeology were called
to the site to investigate.

Initial
examination showed that two individual burials had been disturbed.
A piece of Beaker pottery dating to between 2100BC and 1700BC was
also discovered. It soon became apparent that the human remains
were extremely ancient and the site was subject to a rapidly organised
salvage excavation.

The
surrounding area was cleared and a large oval pit was discovered.
The pit contained a rectangular block of darker material which appears
to have been a former timber structure, possibly a large casket
or cist. Inside the structure were the remains of two groups of
human remains, each of which consisted of a skull and several long
bones.

The
groups of bones were the partial remains of two adult men.
Mixed in with them were the fragments of three further skulls.
This was an unusual burial of more than one person.

Nearby
was a second oval grave. This contained the complete skeleton of
an adult male lying on his side in a crouched position.

Just
visible in the picture is a stone mace head placed at his feet.

The
mace head was lying only inches from the access road which had originally
disturbed the graves and could easily have been lost or destroyed.

The
mace head is a type of stone known as a diorite, meaning it is made
from two types of crystals. In this case the white crystals
are feldspar and the black are hornblende.

This
type of stone was probably imported from Scotland.

These
finds prompted us to widen our search and a large area was stripped
and hand cleaned. This led to the discovery of two more graves.
One of these graves had been badly disturbed by ploughing but the
other was in excellent condition.

The
remains were those of a woman who was laid in her grave lying on
her side with her hands brought up beneath her chin. The remains
of a second group of bones had been placed close to the woman. These
remains had been stacked into a small pile and represented the partial
remains of at least four people.

Excavation
of the female revealed that she had been buried wearing a range
of copper jewellery. Working conditions were extremely difficult
with short December days and hard winter frosts so it was decided
to lift the torso of the skeleton as a single block. It could then
be excavated under laboratory conditions.

To
do this the block was frozen solid with dry ice, carefully lifted,
x-rayed and painstakingly excavated by a trained conservator at
the University of Durham. The excavation of this block led to the
recovery of 41 copper tubular beads, 25 jet buttons and 79 very
small jet beads. The woman had a plain copper bangle on one arm
and a more substantial ribbed copper bracelet on the other.

The
remains of the lady with the copper jewellery and the man with the
mace head dated to around 1900 BC. However the plain burials
and those in the mortuary structure were several hundred years earlier.

Recent
analysis of the human remains from the site has demonstrated that
one of the skeletons from the mortuary structure had been mummified
prior to its burial along with one of the unfurnished burials disturbed
by the builders. This suggests that the community kept mummified
ancestral remains as valued possessions.

The
mummies were eventually buried with their descendants several hundred
years after their deaths. This type of phenomena is becoming
increasingly apparent at Bronze Age sites and is known as the 'Cult
of the Ancestors'. The site remains one of the most intriguing
archaeological discoveries to have been made on Teesside.